More than 1,000 Oxfordshire publishing jobs could be at risk if proposals to alter the way scientific journals are published become reality. Bosses at major Oxford employers, including Reed Elsevier, Oxford University Press and Blackwells, are alarmed at a move by Labour MP Ian Gibson to allow articles to be published by authors on the Internet instead of in specialist publications. Dr Gibson wants to break up what he sees as a cartel involving publishers charging high prices for an increasing number of publications which university libraries struggle to find the cash for.
But speaking at a debate at Westminster, Wantage MP Ed Vaizey said the plan could have a massive impact on Oxfordshire-based publishers. And he warned it would have major implications for job security. He added: "To say the publishers charge too much is not an accurate assessment of the situation.
"If academics pay to publish themselves online, then the money will still come out of university budgets.
"Oxfordshire-based publishing is an export industry bringing in millions of pounds and providing employment for thousands of people.
"And there are far more journals in university libraries than there were 10 years ago.
"It would be absurd to destroy this with a headlong rush into an untried and untested model.
"We should allow the publishing industry to change and adapt to this challenge."
Reed Elsevier spokesman Catherine May said that if the "pay as you write" online model was adapted in favour of printed journals, there would be a major reduction in the quality of research available despite an explosion of quantity. She said: "We have peer review panels and only about 50 per cent of what is submitted is published -- it is a way of controlling quality.
Comment. No wonder this article is unsigned. It's a shameless string of misrepresentations. Eight quick comments: (1) Ian Gibson is not proposing OA distribution instead of publication in peer-reviewed journals. On the contrary, his proposal and the RCUK proposal --the two proposals under discussion at last week's Parliamentary debate on OA-- only apply to articles that are published in peer-reviewed journals. (2) Gibson is alarmed at high journal prices, but his proposal is to put a condition on publicly-funded research grants, not to regulate the publishing industry. (3) The possibility of "massive impact on Oxfordshire-based publishers" has never been backed by evidence --not by scholars in the literature and not by Vaizey in his speech in the House of Commons last week. (4) Vaizey's protest that "It would be absurd to destroy this [industry] with a headlong rush into an untried and untested model" makes a familiar cluster of mistakes. He falsely assumes that Gibson and the RCUK are proposing to mandate submission to OA journals when they are only proposing to mandate deposit in OA repositories. He falsely assumes that OA archiving is untried and untested. He assumes that OA archiving will destroy conventional publishing, when the best evidence to date, from physics where OA archiving is most widespread and longstanding, is that it has not cause any damage whatsoever. He falsely assumes that the Gibson and RCUK proposals are a "headlong rush" when in fact they are the results of an extensive inquiry conducted by the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee. (5) In short, Vaizey says don't fix what isn't broken, when all independent observers agree that the current system of journal publication is dysfunctional and unsustainable. The citizens of Oxfordshire would be better served if the local press told the truth about publishing-sector problems and proposed solutions than to hear one more pep talk papering over the problems. (6) Catherine May brings in the myth that OA journals compromise on peer-review, when it has long been refuted and when the quality of OA journals isn't even relevant to the Gibson or RCUK proposals. (7) May also manages to hint that OA is about bypassing peer review, when as she well knows, it is about removing access barriers to peer-reviewed literature. (8) This is a case of a member of Parliament grandstanding for local consumption.
Posted by
Peter Suber at 12/21/2005 09:43:00 AM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
I recommend the OA tracking project (OATP) as the best way to stay on top of new OA developments. You can read the OATP feed on a blog-like web page or subscribe to it by RSS, email, or Twitter. You can also help build the feed by tagging new developments you encounter.
